Monday, June 26, 2006

Notary to self: Get Apostille

A-Minus: 1 Month 2 Weeks 5 Days

Ever heard of an Apostille? Neither had I until a few weeks ago. Sounds like some sort of amphibious French cuisine. But no, it's actually something like a notary. Most civilized countries and Israel signed a treaty to recognize each other's Apostille stamps on official documents. These stamps are needed on birth certificates of immigrants in Israel who want to marry. I do, in fact, plan on getting married some day, and have a few minor details, like getting my Apostille and finding a girl, to work out.
Figure if a notary public can give a notary, he can give an Apostille too, right? Wrong. But he sent me on the right path, telling me that only the California Secretary of State can actually issue the Apostille, so I have to send my birth certificate to Sacramento. But then I learned that I need to have certified copy of my birth certificate which is less than five years old, which I don't have.
Hunting online, I finally found the form, which requires... a notary. So I went back to the notary, who notarized the form, to get the copy of my birth certificate, to get the Apostille. And all over my lunch hours.

4 comments:

Toto said...

This is where you hang up the sign that says "Are we having fun yet?"

This in my opinion, is all just busywork to get us used to the paper pushing and red tape that we will be accustomed to as Israeli citizens! :)

Ephraim said...

:) I must admit that I don't really mind so much. You just have to be persistent. And I'd rather deal with as much as possible here, where I actually speak the language and can read the different forms.

workhard said...

Hi..Good article

Apostile

AMIT said...

Good work done.Thanks for that.

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